Elections and Getting a New Job

It has been a busy week in Canada – we now have anew Prime Minister, and a whole bunch of people arelooking for new career options in Ottawa!

Elections are, in fact, our country’s most expensiveinterview process, involving thousands of candidates.Elections are a funny thing – we give the governmentOUR tax dollars, then they tell us what they are goingto do with THEIR money, which is really OUR money.There is something wrong with that picture.

Job interviews are like that – somewhat flawed –however, it is the best process we have. In myexperience, there are three keys to getting the job youwant, whether you are a politician or looking to land ajob as Assistant Manager at Walmart:

1. Confidence: Candidates who were confident wonover those who were cocky or unsure about theirmessage, or themselves.

2. Chemistry: Candidates who connected the bestwith the public were more likely to win. Either we liked them better, or, at anyrate, they were the least unliked!

3. Content: Candidates who understood the issues thebest, and were relatively well informed, were also likely to succeed.

It is in this order that most people decide who they willchoose to join their team, or, for that matter, lead thecountry. Content is always last. We often spend a lotof time gathering information about the role and thecompany and what we think they will need. While thisstrategy is terrific, we still must pay attention to thefirst two keys. They have a far greater impact onwhether you will or will not get the role. Monitor yourlevel of confidence; keep track of what you can do toprotect it. And work on developing that chemistry –well, either it is there or not, you can’t manufacturethat easily.

Send me an email (alan@careerjoy.com) about how you have used these three keys inyour job search, and I will share some of your insightsin next week’s WORKout. We will be giving away somecopies of the Canadian (or U.S.) Job Search Kit for yourtrouble.

P.S. We have some exciting news we will be sharing inthe next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!